


Clothes Make the Man

by Clockwork



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-10
Updated: 2010-12-10
Packaged: 2017-10-13 14:37:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/138441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Clockwork/pseuds/Clockwork





	Clothes Make the Man

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Jemisard](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jemisard/gifts).



The clothes make the man.

 

Arthur didn't remember ever hearing his father saying I love you, but he remembered that. Said every time Athur stood there watching his father as he dressed for the night. Thomas was a self made man who didn't believe in work, or in giving up. He'd come home with a black eye and a busted lip and still sit down at the table and work the dice until they practically pounded out his own personal rhythm on the felt.

When Arthur was just a boy, visiting his father and learning how to count cards and roll the dice just so, he would listen to his dad tell him of a future that was better than this. Of the life that Tommy planned to make for his son. A life Arthur never imagined until it happened.

Working his way up through the ranks and making a reputation for himself, Arthur was just sixteen when his father became the right hand to one of the Vegas' brightest stars on the dark side of the Strip. The term mobster wasn't used as often as businessman. They weren't criminals, just those in a business different from others. Sixteen, dressed in silk and linen and Italian leather, Arthur found himself working for his father behind his mother's back.

Whenever Tommy had a job, someone new to town looking to make a name for themselves, or old and hiding a few secrets, Tommy turned their information over to Arthur. He knew all the ways to find out the details, even down to the size of a man's shorts and the way his mistress took her morning coffee. He was brilliant at research and with Arthur taking point before Tommy rushed in, they were taking over the city.

It was how Arthur got pulled into his first extraction. Not seeking out knowledge from a person's subconscious himself, but rather as the target of a thief.

There was rain on the Strip, coming down in sheets that made the desert air electric, rich with wet sage and creosote. Oil on asphalt made the streets slick and a taxi going too fast nearly turned Arthur into another causality. The woman that saved him was exotic rather than beautiful, never smiling even as she pulled him out of the rain and under the shelter of a hotel awning.

He didn't remember the casino from before, some little thing far off the beaten path, likely there on business. Even as he thought about that, about why he was there in that horrid rain, soaked to the bone and his loafers ruined, she kissed him. Kissed him in a way that curled his toes and turned the world upside down. Curled his toe against the padded lining of water logged sneakers. Trainers and not the buttery soft, polished daily Italian leather loafers made by the same person since he was old enough wear solid sole shoes.

The hotel cracked, adobe splitting with a sound like thunder. Then there was thunder, lightning, bulbs around them popping one after the other like machine gun fire. The girl gave him a look and then a crowd overcame them, pulling them apart, her screams echoing as the lightning made it look like strobe lights and dying.

Arthur came to with a start, gasping for a breath. Alone in the dark, he felt the corners of a die digging into his palm. He lay there like that until sunrise, until the small silver phone on his night table rang. Until someone called to tell him Tommy had been gunned down while leaving the casino. As Arthur lay there, trying to capture the edges of a dream he hadn't created, his father had been killed.

Die in hand, he went to the man Tommy had worked for, laying down a silver case full of money and having only one request.

"Find me an extractor. I want to learn it all."


End file.
